Liberal Arts and Sciences provides art and design students with a diverse and intellectually stimulating environment cultivating the critical tools that enable them to become informed artists and designers who are prepared to meet global challenges. The curriculum is constructed around four themes: Connecting to creativity, arguing for humanity, math and science in action, and resourcing the future.
Student Learning Outcomes
Liberal Arts and Sciences Students Will...
Liberal Arts and Sciences student work will demonstrate:
- Disciplinary Knowledge and Skills:
Ability, knowledge, and analytical skills to critically examine established beliefs and practices, formulate well-reasoned questions, propose alternative perspectives, and explore speculative possibilities - Cross-Disciplinary Awareness and Practice:
Forge interdisciplinary connections among the liberal arts and sciences, studio, and community - Audience-Focused Research, Historical Context, and Field-Specific Discourse:
Research skills to develop the capacity to conduct independent and original research, to acknowledge diverse points of view, and to contextualize their work within historical and contemporary frameworks
Liberal Arts and Sciences student work will demonstrate:
- Innovation
An exploration of unfamiliar intellectual and creative spaces and ideas - Experimentation and play
Discovery of their capacity to embrace and integrate academic skills and rigor to support their creative practice - Challenge to the status quo
How they challenge themselves to be flexible thinkers unbound by their own status quo beliefs
Liberal Arts and Sciences student work will demonstrate:
- Capacity to Communicate (Orally, Written, and/or Visually) About Their Practice:
Capacity to communicate self-awareness ethically and aesthetically through oral, written, and/or visual mediums - Capacity to Seek, Assemble, Evaluate, and Ethically Apply Information and Ideas from
Diverse Sources:
Capacity to seek, assemble, evaluate, and ethically apply information and ideas from diverse sources, including scholarly sources, personal interviews, and fieldwork
Liberal Arts and Sciences student work will demonstrate:
- Understanding of Themselves as Parts of a Larger Whole Made Up of Human and Non-Human
Beings:
An understanding of themselves as part of a large living ecosystem made up of human and non-human beings - Awareness of Positionality – In the World, Their Field, Their Communities:
How ideas, lived experiences, and intersectional identities challenge established frameworks in order to critically synthesize new possibilities - Ability to Work Well, Collaborate, and Build Relationships Across Differences in Identity,
Perspective, Aesthetics, and Disciplines:
Ability to collaborate effectively with others to analyze, evaluate, and apply academic and real-world problem-solving skills - Integration of Skills, Information, and Concepts:
Knowledge of the disciplines introduced in the Liberal Arts and Sciences and their relevance to the ideation and creative skills developed in their studio majors
- Ability to Define Aspirations, Future Goals, and Their Role Within the Creative Economy:
The value of integrating and applying their intellectual curiosity and critical thinking to enhance their studio practice - Compelling Presentation and Exhibition Skills, Through Annual Exhibition, Capstone,
and Portfolios:
The synthesis of their intellectual and creative arc in their Capstone senior research paper and project. - Career Readiness:
As evidenced by strong interpersonal and professional skills, including self-advocacy, initiative, adaptation, and a willingness to both receive and offer feedback
Program Themes
Creativity
Creativity is an ability to produce work that is generative, novel, innovative, original and unexpected. Hallmarks of the creative process include generating expansive and imaginative alternatives, viewing the familiar in extraordinary ways, investigating mistakes as potential pathways to success, as well as persevering in curiosity and critical inquiry beyond assumed limitations.
Diversity
Diversity is a value and practice of actively recognizing the plurality of positions, methodologies, and practices around people, groups, objects, and ideas. It also refers to acceptance and respect for individuals and groups regardless of and sometimes because of their differences. In a global world that is complex and multidimensional, diversity often involves a convergence of multiple identities, moving beyond tolerance to an appreciation of diversity as a rich resource with significant benefits.
Identity
Identity generally refers to those qualities or characteristics that define us and distinguish us from others. It can have many values, personal or collective, innate or constructed, permanent or changing, often because of situational perspectives.
Social Responsibility
Social Responsibility is an ethical commitment to sensitivity and empathy for the consequences of our actions. The practice of social responsibility assumes the connections between individuals and communities, and a concern for humanity. Social responsibility recognizes the importance of activism in engaging members of a community and/ or institutions to make a difference.
Faculty Office Hours
Full-time faculty office hours are posted outside the Liberal Arts and Sciences office. All faculty can be contacted by email for an appointment.
Kerri Steinberg
Department Chair
Mondays–Thursday
10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Phone: 424-207-2528
Email: ksteinberg@otis.edu
JoAnn Staten
Acting Assistant Chair
Tuesday–Friday
10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Phone: 424-207-2528
Email: jstaten@otis.edu